London

Things we did in London:
We saw:

• Hyde Park- London's Central Park
• The Tower of London- we didn't get to go in, but will come back to London to do that
• Tower Bridge- "London Bridge" from the song
• Houses of Parliament- big, "mock gothic" buildings
• Big Ben- a big clock =)
• The London Eye- thomas wanted to go on it but we didn't, so it ruined his trip
• The Old(e) Globe- we saw both the original site and a reconstructed version built exactly how the original was (no nails, thatch roof, etc.)
• King's Cross station & Platform 9 3/4- they have a sign that says platform 9 3/4 and half a trolley stuck to the wall
• Buckingham Palace- its not that beautiful,the gates are more beautiful than the actual palace
• Paddington Station- Cindy and Anthony took a picture with a statue of Paddington Bear
• The Changing of the Guard- kind of, we only saw the veeeeeeeery end
• The Ritz Hotel- $$$$$$$$$$$$
• Rainforest Cafe, London- we had lunch there, the thunderstorms scared Anthony and Thomas, but not me or Cindy
• The Drowsy Chaperone on West End (like London's Broadway)- the author was playing the leading role and had apparently been nominated for a lot of Oscars for his Broadway performances
• I counted 360 taxis in one day while walking around London. I saw 100 of them outside Buckingham Palace

Our Hotels:
The Good One:

• The first hotel we went to was called Quality Crown and was part of the Quality chain
• It was rated four star and was really nice
• It was like an american hotel
  the staff was a little bit stuffy

The Bad One:

• We had to stay in London for two more nights after our reservation at the Quality Crown
  the Abbeycourt Hotel was next door to the Quality Crown and had a really nice lobby, so we chose that one
• The room was horrible
• The carpet felt like classroom carpet
• There were no fans or tv remote controls
• For breakfast there was:
• a big bowl of Corn Flakes
• bologna
• cheese
• about half a loaf of white bread toast per table, regardless of the size of your party (My dad went down for breakfast by himself and got the same amount of toast as the other five of us did)
• orange juice
• apple juice
• passion fruit juice
• coffee
• tea
• hot chocolate
• milk

Notice there were more drink choices than food choices, so it was a big letdown, especially since it had a fabulous lobby